ont face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Narrator: This is Science Today. A team of Russian and American scientists, including those at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, has added more elements to chemistry’s Periodic Table after discovering two of the newest super heavy elements, element 113 and element 115. What does all this mean? Joshua Patin, the Lab’s primary data analyst, explains.

Patin: Super heavy elements – it’s defined to describe elements whose proton numbers are greater than 103. You can go above 109 and you start to get into the real super heavy elements. The ones we’re talking about were elements 115 and 113. They’re in a region of the periodic table that hasn’t been explored. Hasn’t been seen until we did the experiment last year.

Narrator: Super heavy elements have been difficult to make, partially due to the fact that they become unstable and are short-lived.

Patin: By doing this research, we’re showing that it could possibly exist and the experiments and the research needs to continue. The common moniker is we’re searching for an island of stability.

Narrator: For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.